SWEET LITTLE LIES // BELLAMY BLAKE // THE 1OO

TWO

✿ TWO ✿

"Tell me lies

Tell me sweet little lies"

___

After having received, with much difficulty, a pair of ill-fitting combat boots and an oversized jacket, Katherine was finally able to enter the Dropship. Most of the sitting places had been taken, but she managed to find one across a kid her age with some odd goggles around his neck. 

Just as she was about to strap in, she heard a voice she knew all too well whispering her name. Quickly her head shot up, to meet the gaze of her favourite boy from Agro Station. The last time she had seen him, he had only been twelve. His cheeks had been chubby, his brown eyes cute and his long dark hair shaggy and untamed. At least the last part didn't seem to have changed. 

"Monty," Katherine gasped surprised. Her fingers went to the clasp at her middle to unlock it, so that she could walk to the only friend she had ever had, but the boy with the goggles interrupted her. 

"If I were you, I would wait for the Dropship to stabilize before you go out to hug my best buddie," the guy said, his hands waving exaggeratingly through the air. 

Even though Katherine couldn't help but agree with the boy, the Exodus ship had started to rumble as if it could detach any minute now, she still felt a bit annoyed. "Your best buddie?" Katherine asked, only slightly insulted. 

Sure, she and Monty had tended to the gardens often when both of them had been kids, but as she grew older, she helped him less with watering the plants and instead, found quiet places in the middle of the lavender fields to delve into some book about medicine or plants. But, as she had no other friends, she could still count on Monty.

Playfully, she raised an eyebrow to Monty, who looked from the guy with the goggles to Katherine and back. "You mind explaining this messed up triangle, Monty?"

"Well, Katherine, this is Jasper. Jasper, this is Katherine. Katherine always helped me taking care of the plants when we were younger. And as she started to replace me with books," Monty said while giving Katherine a comical, pointing look. "I started becoming friends with you."

"Ah, I see," Jasper nodded knowingly, causing Katherine to look at him intensely. "I'm the better version two."

"Also, a small hint," Monty added, after seeing the look in Katherine's eyes. "They say that if those oddly blue eyes look at you for too long, you will either turn into stone right away or be haunted for the rest of your life."

"Ah, now I suddenly remember why I preferred books over you," she joked back, feeling overwhelmed with relief. As of now, neither Monty nor Jasper seemed to know of her crimes, which was a positive sign. And if Monty, a person very close to her, didn't know, chances were big that other's didn't either. Just as she would like to keep it. 

Just as she was about to ask wherever Jasper had founded those goggles, the dropship seemed to have hit something. Katherine grasped the green beanie from Miller as if her life depended on it, her nails scratching the rough wool. 

"The atmosphere," she muttered quietly to herself once the Exodus ship was stabilized again.

All of a sudden a screen flashed on and Katherine watched the Chancellor in fascination. She got why people hated him, surely it would seem as if he was the cause of a lot of pain on the Ark, but Katherine never really got that. By becoming Chancellor the man had to carry not only the joy of his people - which wasn't a lot on the Ark - but also all the sorrows and the hate. People oftentimes seemed to forget that he hadn't written the laws, he just had to enforce them.